


Fists in the sand

by Builder



Series: Missing Moments [12]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Disordered Eating, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Protective Steve Rogers, Sickfic, which is separate from eating disorders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 08:08:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19080961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Builder/pseuds/Builder
Summary: “Buck–” Steve starts, but he’s opened the floodgates.  Bucky starts to speak, low and quiet and fast.“It’s like, I don’t know.  It’s like being back from being on ice again.  Like here I am, the same person I used to be, but everybody else is changed.  Time passed, only it didn’t for me.  Nothing looks the same anymore, but if I say something, you’ll think I’m crazy.  You’ll tell me I’m the one something’s gone wrong with.”





	Fists in the sand

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @builder051

He’s looking too thin, Steve finally decides.  No two ways about it.  Bucky came back with a penchant for slim-cut jeans and tailored leather jackets, but that’s not all that’s sleek and angular about him.  His cheekbones stick out visibly, and the ridges of his hips poke neatly between Steve’s when they embrace.   **  
**

It takes Steve two weeks to ask him about it.  Fourteen days of triple espressos and nibbles of dry toast pass before Steve sees the pain in his eyes and makes up his mind to finally say something.  

“What’cha doing, Buck?”  It isn’t the most eloquent phrase, but appropriate.  What else does a person ask when walking in on their significant other dropping bits of discarded crust into the garbage disposal?

“Huh?”  Bucky nearly drops the bit of Russian rye, then glances from the bread to Steve’s worried face.  “Sorry.”

Steve can’t care less about the waste of food.  That part doesn’t even register.  It’s the fact that Bucky’s jumpy that worries him.  The fact that he’s visibly shaking.  

“Hey.”  Steve takes the bread out of his hand and nearly crushes it to a pulp as he drops it on the counter beside the sink.  “Talk to me.”  He reaches for Bucky’s chin, but the other man flinches away.

“It’s alright,” Steve reminds him.  He seems to say it twenty times a day now, and he’s still not sure Bucky believes him.

Bucky exhales, long and hard, as if blowing away nonexistent crumbs will make Steve back away, the whole situation forgotten.  “Nothing,” he finally says.  “It’s…it’s nothing.”

“Bullshit.”  Steve doesn’t say it loudly or angrily, but the curse still drops like a bomb between them.  He practically hears the hit the tile floor at the toes of his boots.  “Just… tell me what’s going on.”

“I…” Bucky stutters.  “I don’t know.”  He scrubs his hand up the side of his face, pushing through stubble, then crinkling up the corner of his eye before he drops his palm down on Steve’s knuckles, subtly pushing him away.  “It’s just…hard.”

“What is, Buck?”  Steve shakes his head, trying not to let the movement take over and give the moment a different meaning than the one he intends.  He’s not here to scare Bucky, not here to make him uncomfortable, though now he’s in danger of doing both.  “I’m… Well, I’m kind of worried about you.”

“Don’t be.”  The response is too quick to be genuine, too smooth and rehearsed.  It’s not one of the phrases Bucky picked up in therapy to convince Steve he was on the mend when he was really hanging by a thread, but the sentiment is the same.  Steve wonders how long Bucky’s been ruminating on this one.

“No.”  Steve shakes his head.  “You’re…”  He gestures to Bucky’s hollow chest, hoping for a last opportunity of mutual understanding.  But it doesn’t come.  “You’re wasting away, Buck.”  Steve gives an uncomfortable laugh.  “You’re gonna wind up smaller than I was before the war.”

Bucky lets out another long breath, as if he has to let all the air out of his lungs before the words can travel down from his brain to his mouth.  “No, I’m not.”

Steve twists on his lower lip as he does a quick mental calculation.  Bucky’s got a solid six inches on Steve’s previous and diminutive height.  The raw numbers don’t line up, but the BMIs might.  “Mmm, yeah, you kind of are.”

“Huh.”  Bucky looks down at himself, picking at the front of his t-shirt with his metal thumb and forefinger.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, I, uh…”  Steve’s suddenly embarrassed.  He wonders for a moment if he’d be better to backtrack, say never mind and be on his way.  “I’m just…worried about you, I guess.  No big shakes, but, you know…”  He gives a vague jerk of the head, as if that means anything to Bucky.  It’s clear that it doesn’t, and they’re no farther along than when they started.

Bucky blinks at him, his glassy eyes slightly sunken in their sockets.

“Look,” Steve says.  His heart thrums as if he’s about to make a secret confession.  “You aren’t eating.  You…”  He gives Bucky another appraising look, trying not to linger on the belt pulled to the furthest hole or the prominent veins stretching up his arms.  “You aren’t well, are you?”

It’s not really a question, so Bucky doesn’t provide an answer.  He has to know Steve’s right.  Regular people don’t just shave off 20 pounds without trying, or at least noticing.

“Come on,” Steve says, a desperate whine finding its way into his voice.  “Tell me.  Help me…”  He digs for the words Bucky’s therapist taught him to use.  “Help me understand.”

Bucky sighs a third time.  Steve wonders if he’s getting irritated.  A regular person would, but he’s already established the fact that Bucky’s something else.  He’s more patient in some situations, more flighty in others.  

Steve waits for him to say something, but he doesn’t.  Bucky moves, fast as lightning, and grabs up the scrap of bread crust, smashing it further in his metal grip.  “It’s just hard,” he says, shaking his head.  “I’m sorry, Stevie.  I just don’t have a better explanation.”

The words are grating, but hearing Bucky use the nickname is reassuring.  Steve swallows the sharp edge of his frustration.  “And why’s that?” he presses.

“I…”  Bucky brings his flesh hand up to rub between his eyes.  “I don’t know.  I really don’t.”

“Buck–” Steve starts, but he’s opened the floodgates.  Bucky starts to speak, low and quiet and fast.

“It’s like, I don’t know.  It’s like being back from being on ice again.  Like here I am, the same person I used to be, but everybody else is changed.  Time passed, only it didn’t for me.  Nothing looks the same anymore, but if I say something, you’ll think I’m crazy.  You’ll tell me I’m the one something’s gone wrong with.”

“No, Buck,” Steve says quickly, before he even thinks it through.  “That’s not true.  I won’t–”

Bucky throws the core of smashed bread into the sink again.  “Isn’t it, though?  You’re asking me what’s going on, like you’re going to fix it or something.  This isn’t like some sore throat, Steve.  It’s not a bloody nose.  You can’t send me down to the hospital and get it all fixed up.”

“I will, though,” Steve supplies quickly.  “If it would help, that’s exactly what I’d do.”

“I know.”  Bucky leers at him.  “But it won’t, ok?  Trust me on that one?”  He drops his chin and raises his eyebrows, practically up to his hairline.  

“I…”  Steve presses his lips together.  “I don’t know.  I really wish I could, but I just don’t know what I’m looking at here.”  He shakes his head a little, refusing to free Bucky from the constraints of his gaze.

“And I don’t know what I’m supposed to tell you.”  Bucky drops the bread again, using his metal hand to push it all the way down the drain.  Steve cringes when he hears the vibranium scrape against the disposal’s dull blades.

“Yeah.”  Steve pauses, trying desperately to think of what to say next.   _Tell me you’re ok_  won’t work.  Neither will  _tell me you won’t hurt yourself._   “Tell me…”  He toys around with another phrase or two before settling.  “Tell me you love me, Buck.  Cause I love you.  You know how much I love you?”

It’s not really a question again, but this time Bucky works his way through to an answer.  “Yeah, Stevie.  Yeah.  I do.”

 

 


End file.
